The Story of Hollywood
12th June 2025
ZMan rips back the curtain.
The streaming story is a good example of how culture is too complicated to model with a green visor and excel spreadsheet. The bean counters just assumed streaming would follow the model of the rental market, which followed the pattern they saw in the secondary theater market. Low budget films, mediocre films and even terrible films made additional money in the secondary theater market. When take-home rentals came along, these films often got a second life in this market.
It has not worked that way with streaming. A film like the live action Snow White, which was torn apart by internet critics, was a massive flop at the theaters, but then had no life in the streaming market. In the old days, it would get rentals from people curious about it or for get-togethers with friends to have a good time laughing at a bad film. That is not the dynamic with streaming. People will watch nothing rather than sit down to watch a bad movie or something unknown to them.
What streaming failed to account for is the social aspect of films. In the old days, going to the theater for many people was like going to church. It was a thing you did every weekend, not because of the content but because of the social aspect. The theater was where men took their dates and the choice of film or how they selected the film to see was part of the courtship. Friends went to the theater, even if the films on offer were unknown or not good, because it was part of the social event.